The present invention relates to a deleting system picture information in a picture information file device which is capable of recording picture information such as a document and which is capable of retrieving and outputting the recorded picture information as needed.
A conventional system for storing and retrieving a document picture is known wherein pictures reduced in scale are directly recorded on microfilms. As an improvement over this system, a picture information file device has been proposed which uses a 2-dimension scanning device utilizing photoelectric conversion techniques with a laser beam or CCD elements. This 2-dimension scanning device decomposes a document picture into picture elements, converts the picture elements into picture signals, and records the picture signals on a magnetic recording medium at a high density. This type of device also stores on the magnetic recording medium picture information and a retrieval title consisting of a retrieval code indicating a recording position of the picture information and so on. Therefore, as the need arises, the retrieval code may be input to retrieve the corresponding document picture as a hard copy.
However, with this type of device, the retrieval title and picture information must be deleted in order to delete the picture information recorded on a magnetic recording medium, resulting in inconvenience. Recording of new picture information in the deleted area also requires complex procedure.